Early Stage Researcher (ESR, PhD fellow)

Early Stage Researcher in the FOIE GRAS EU Training Network
ESR 10

Financial aspects: The project provides full funding for tuitions fees and salary.
Monthly living allowance: The post-holder will be offered a salary plus allowances in line with the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions.

- Applicants must have an undergraduate or Master degree in Biochemistry, Biology, Biological chemistry, Biomedical sciences, Pharmacy, Bio-informatics, or related area and are interested in multi/ interdisciplinary research;

- Applicants must not yet been awarded a PhD degree and must be in the first 4 years (full-time equivalent) of their research careers prior to the recruitment;

- Applicants are asked to supply a complete curriculum vitae including the following information:

- Personal details academic/education history, including a list of courses/exams and grades, the exact award date (day/month/year) of the degree with original transcripts of Bachelor and Master University Degree as well as copy of valid identity documents,  experimental skills, publications, etc.

- Personal statement/motivation letter (up to 2 pages) about the research experience and interests;

- Names and contact information of at least two academic referees who could write a letter of recommendation;

- Applicants can be of any nationality;

- Applicants must be eligible to work in Portugal. They MUST NOT have resided or carried out their main activity in Portugal more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately before the recruitment date. 

The research project will be based at the University of Porto, but the post-holder will also be required to undertake some work and travel in other countries within the FOIE GRAS network.

Candidates should submit a complete application* in ONE PDF file only, by e-mail to coordinator.etnfoiegras@cnc.uc.pt. Deadline for submission is January 28th 2017. The criteria for evaluation will be as follows: previous experience, based on CV (70%), letter of motivation (15%) and letters of reference (15%). Knowledge of English language (written and oral) is mandatory due to the international nature of the project. The Jury may decide to interview the candidates in order to perform a more objective evaluation of some of the criteria. Final decision will be communicated no later than April 15th 2017 with the contracts expected to initiate in June 1st 2017. *Candidates that submit multiple files will be excluded from the evaluation.

We are seeking to appoint an Early Stage Researcher (ESR, PhD fellow) within the FOIE GRAS European Training Network sponsored by the Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions EU Horizon 2020. ESR will participate in a research project on the relation between physical activity and Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) at the University of Porto (UPORTO), Portugal, commencing in June 2017. Funding is initially available for three years and ESR is expected to be enrolled in a PhD programme.

A key objective of the FOIE GRAS network is to better understand the metabolic mechanisms and treatment behind NAFLD. This project aims to determine the physical exercise regimen (voluntary vs. endurance) is more effective in reducing the NAFLD phenotype in human patients and in a high-fat diet mouse model. Research will include methodologies associated to patient data analysis, analytical detection of plasma markers in both humans and animal models and mitochondrial analysis in isolated hepatic fractions from the animal models. The post-holder will have some scope to adapt the project based on his/her interests.

The post-holder will complete a research project under the supervision of Dr. José Magalhães and Dr.
Fernanda Borges, at the University of Porto, Portugal, with additional supervision of Dr. Piero Portincasa, at a Large Division of Internal Medicine of the Regional Policlinico Hospital, University of Bari Aldo Moro (UNIBA), Italy, and Dr. Andreas Wolf at the microBIOLYTICS, Germany.

The post-holder will be a member of the ETN FOIE GRAS (GA No. 722619), which comprises 10 beneficiary institutions and 4 associated partners from industry and clinical practice in 7 countries. Prospective candidates are encourage to have a look at the other available ESR projects in the network (13 in total, see FOIE GRAS’ website) and indicate up to 3 projects in order of preference in their applications.